SharePoint Premium in the era of AI

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SharePoint Premium is an add-on product for Microsoft 365 that offers enhanced document management and records management functionality with advanced administration and compliance capabilities for SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Premium takes the existing features within Microsoft 365’s to the next level by adding advanced AI to automate content processing with AI-Powered Content Experiences changing the way to manage information.

This article discusses the details of SharePoint Premium, providing a thorough guide for administrators, developers, and business users, supported by expert advice, insights and practical examples.

In this blog, we’ll cover these main topics:

  • How to get started with SharePoint Premium.
  • Who can benefit from Microsoft SharePoint Premium.
  • Why should your organization consider Microsoft SharePoint Premium.
  • What is Microsoft SharePoint Premium.
  • How to deploy and adopt SharePoint Premium in your organization.

The Era of AI

AI is revolutionizing the way in which we think about, design and build IT solutions in 2024 – as such, many now refer to it as the ‘Era of AI’.

Document automation, powered by advanced AI algorithms, has significantly enhanced the capability of IT systems to understand, analyze, and manage our content. For SharePoint Premium, some of this technology is not new; Microsoft Syntex and AI Builder – both Microsoft products, have been around for many years with many document recognition features. However, given the Ear of AI that we’re in, the uptake of AI has given these capabilities a much larger stage.

The latest shift with Microsoft and OpenAI AI enhances and improves upon former iterations of Microsoft AI enabled features, leveraging natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to extract valuable information from unstructured data, transforming it into structured formats that can be easily interpreted and utilized by businesses. As a result, tasks such as data entry, document classification, and content extraction, which were previously manual and time-consuming, are now automated, increasing efficiency, and reducing human error.

Process automation, on the other hand, has evolved from simple rule-based automation to more sophisticated AI-driven automation. This shift has enabled the automation of complex business processes that require decision-making capabilities and advanced content routing.

For example,

  • The healthcare sector is witnessing transformative changes due to AI-driven document intelligence and process automation. Electronic health records (EHRs) are being managed more effectively with AI, ensuring accurate and up-to-date patient information.
  • Financial services are benefiting immensely from AI advancements in document intelligence and process automation (know as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)). By reducing manual intervention, financial services organizations can provide faster and more reliable services to their clients, enhancing the overall customer experience.
  • In the legal industry, AI-driven document intelligence is transforming how legal documents are created, reviewed, and managed.

AI tools can quickly analyze large volumes of legal texts, identifying relevant information/legal precedents and suggesting edits. This accelerates the drafting and review process, allowing legal professionals to focus on higher-level strategic work.

Microsoft Copilot and Copilot for Microsoft 365 are innovative AI-powered tools designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows within the Microsoft Office suite of tools. These products leverage the power of advanced AI, particularly generative models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, to assist users by providing intelligent suggestions, automating repetitive tasks, assisting with the creation of Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint documents and offering insights based on contextual data within Microsoft Excel.

Over the past 18 months, AI has significantly influenced Microsoft’s product development focus. The rapid development of these ‘Copilots’ have been pivotal in transforming the user experience, making Microsoft applications more intuitive and user-friendly.

The introduction of these AI enabled assistants has also positioned Microsoft as a leader in the adoption of AI in office productivity tools. By embedding AI into their core products, Microsoft has set a new standard for what users can expect from their software, emphasizing automation, intelligence, and user-centric design. This strategic move has likely contributed to increased user satisfaction and retention, as well as attracting new users looking for cutting-edge productivity solutions.

Getting Started with Microsoft SharePoint Premium

SharePoint Premium is an advanced iteration of the widely utilized Microsoft Syntex platform, first released back in October 2020. The latest incarnation enhances the capabilities within Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online, offering a more robust, scalable, and feature-rich solution for enterprise content management, collaboration, business process automation and advanced administration needs.

Microsoft Syntex was first introduced as a service designed for content understanding, creation, classification and extraction. It leverages intelligent document processing, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced machine learning to discover, organize, and classify documents across SharePoint libraries.

In more recent years similar functionality has been extended to other products within the Microsoft Product, providing users with several options from Low-Code to Pro-Code solutions (or in some cases, an alternative way to developing these solutions adhering to more cost-effective licensing models).

  • Azure Document Intelligence Studio
  • AI Builder within the Microsoft Power Platform

In addition to first-party Microsoft products the number of third-party Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s) providing AI infused solutions for Microsoft 365 has also increased, such as Encodians’ (https://www.encodian.com/product/flowr/) ‘Flowr’ product which includes AI enabled actions for Power Automate.

When to consider SharePoint Premium?

For many, SharePoint Online is the organizations go-to document management repository. Naturally, introducing another document management solution to an organization, introduces technical debit and complicates security and integration needs. SharePoint provides a simple and cost-effective option for CTOs/CIOs to consider, that enables premium document management features on-top of their existing data repository – with many of the features charged on a consumption model basis.

There are many scenarios where an organization may wish to consider SharePoint Premium, including the following typical scenarios:

  • Document Creation – Using the ‘Content Assembly’ feature, organizations can automate the creation of standard repetitive business documents like contracts, statements of work, service agreements, letters of consent, and correspondence by using pre-defined document templates and mapping the required fields to relevant data sources.
  • Document Classification and Extraction – Using SharePoint Premium enables content management by leveraging AI to automate document classification and extraction using an end-user friendly interface to create and publish AI models. This reduces manual efforts, minimizes errors, and enhances the accuracy and efficiency of document handling.
  • Enhanced Productivity and Collaboration – SharePoint Premium provides advanced content experience related tools , such as Annotations, Redaction, Merge, Extract and Autofill – enabling an organization to be more productive and better at collaboration.
  • Improved Security and Compliance – Security is a critical concern for any organization, and SharePoint Premium provides advanced administration, access controls, and compliance management tools. These features help protect sensitive information from unauthorized access. With the introduction of Microsoft Copilot, many organizations are using these features to review the security and permission models applied to their SharePoint content – mitigating exposure to sensitive information via AI generated content.
  • Archive – Microsoft 365 Archive offers a cost-effective, long-term storage solution for inactive or historical data in SharePoint. By archiving data in place, it maintains Microsoft 365’s security, compliance, search capabilities, and rich metadata.
  • Backup – Microsoft 365 Backup delivers advanced backup and recovery capabilities for SharePoint, Exchange Online, and OneDrive for Business, ensuring all data remains within the Microsoft 365 security boundary.

Who is SharePoint Premium for?

SharePoint Premium is designed to cater for a wide range of organizations, industries, and individuals. Typically, the decision for using SharePoint Premium is driven by different parts of the organization.

  • Mature Document Management Needs – CTOs/CIOs with complex workflows, extensive document management needs, and large user bases will benefit significantly for the comprehensive features provided by SharePoint Premium.
  • Regulated Industries – Industries such as healthcare, finance, and legal sectors, which require stringent data security and compliance, will find the advanced security and compliance features of SharePoint Premium particularly beneficial.
  • Knowledge-Intensive Organizations – Businesses that rely heavily on knowledge management, such as consulting firms, research institutions, and educational organizations, will benefit from the intelligent content services provided by SharePoint Premium.
  • IT Departments – IT departments within organizations will appreciate the ease of management, deployment, and integration of SharePoint Premium with existing IT infrastructure and other Microsoft 365 services, including the backup and archiving features.

Whilst the perception is often associated with larger organizations using premium technology / bolt-on licensing; many smaller organizations will see benefits of automation – those with increasing workloads that need more effective methods to process repetitive tasks without increasing headcount.

How to get started with SharePoint Premium

Deploying and adopting SharePoint Premium, as with any new IT solution, involves several key steps to ensure a smooth transition and successful implementation.

  • Assess Your Needs and Set Objectives – Start by assessing your organization’s specific needs and setting clear objectives for what you want to achieve with SharePoint Premium.

Identify the key areas where SharePoint Premium can add value, such as improving collaboration, enhancing security, or streamlining content management.

  • It is important to understand that some of the features within SharePoint Premium will be specific to a business process, with a handful of users; identify key stakeholders where these features can be deployed, and complete smaller projects to successfully deploy SharePoint Premium.
    • Features such as Microsoft 365 Archive and Backup are more IT driven requirements – the approach to deployment and roll-out will differ to the above.
  • Plan Your Deployment Strategy – Develop a deployment strategy that considers:
    • Determine the scope of deployment, including which departments or teams will initially use SharePoint Premium.
    • Establish a timeline for deployment, including key milestones and deadlines.
    • Allocate the necessary resources, including budget, personnel, and IT infrastructure (the Azure subscription and user licensing).
  • Configure SharePoint Premium – Work with your IT team or a Microsoft partner to configure SharePoint Premium according to your organization’s needs.
    • Define user roles and permissions to enable and manage which parts of the SharePoint environment is enabled for SharePoint Premium.
    • Identify a process as to how end-users can request enablement of SharePoint Premium features within their SharePoint Sites.
  • Training – Provide training for your users to ensure they are comfortable using SharePoint Premium.
    • Familiarize users with the basic navigation and key features of SharePoint Premium.
    • Provide a means for new-starters to receive the same level of information – typically recorded sessions, stored within an area that can be used to host and store all SharePoint Premium related content is typically advised – this can be a simple SharePoint Communication Site.
  • Promote User Adoption – Encourage user adoption by promoting the benefits of SharePoint Premium and addressing any concerns or resistance. Strategies to promote adoption include:
    • Communicate the benefits and value of SharePoint Premium to all stakeholders.
    • Identify and empower champions within your organization who can advocate for SharePoint Premium and assist their peers.
    • Provide ongoing support and gather feedback to continuously improve the user experience.
  • Monitor and Optimize – After deployment, continuously monitor the performance and usage of SharePoint Premium. Use analytics and user feedback to identify areas for improvement and optimize the system to better meet your organization’s needs.
    • Track key performance metrics such as user engagement, document collaboration, and workflow efficiency.
    • Regularly collect user feedback to identify pain points and areas for enhancement.
    • Implement improvements based on feedback and performance data to ensure that SharePoint Premium continues to deliver value to your organization.
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Published by Aaron

I am an experienced, commercially aware, Microsoft 365 Solution Architect / Technology Leader with a strong and demonstrable background within the Collaboration, Productivity and Low-Code / Pro-Code Development platforms of Microsoft 365 and Azure. With over 15 years of experience working with Microsoft technology, I have worked with many organisations - from SMEs through to Enterprise, working to digitally transform their businesses with the successful implementation and adoption of Microsoft 365 and Azure products. This includes managing the lifecycle of the project from visioning exercises, discovery, solution design through to implementation and user adoption and change management strategies. More recently, my current roles include: Technology Development: - Development and implementation of the company’s technical strategy - Implementation of products and services relevant to the Microsoft Business Applications, Modern Workplace and Development technology areas within Microsoft 365 - Manage and develop technical media assets, including product Service Catalogues and GTM related content - Monitor and evaluate new technology and make recommendations for required technological solutions - Deliver technical marketing activities, ensuring events are suitably presented with appropriate content. Pre-Sales: - Manage and deliver Pre-Sales activities - Review and approve sales proposals, for the viability and appropriateness of proposed solutions - Understand and interpret requirements and provide deliverable solutions based on the product portfolio - Provide technical input and validation during the creation of Sales proposals, and in response to RFIs / RFPs.

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